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Tourism's mission hampered, but not stopped, by Denver-Tokyo delays

By Kristen Leigh PainterThe Denver Post

Posted:
06/12/2013 07:15:29 AM MDT

Updated:
06/13/2013 01:45:52 AM MDT

From left, Stephen Anderson, commercial attache for the U.S. Embassy; Andrew Wylegala, Minister-Counselor for Commercial Affairs; Cindy Yoshiko Shirata, professor of International Business at University of Tsukuba; and Jim Mueller, vice president of Atlantic and Pacific sales for United Airlines, speak on the economic and political climate. (Kristen Leigh Painter, The Denver Post)

Arlene Hirschfeld of Denver looks over the edge of the Tokyo Skytree broadcasting tower. She is part of the delegation hoping to open new opportunities in Japan with the debut of direct flights to Japan. (Kristen Leigh Painter, The Denver Post)

TOKYO — The rain falling here Wednesday amplified the dampened mood that some tourism officials felt as they made their big pitch to the travel industry, months late and to a smaller audience than they would have had if the delays had not occurred.

But the group lost a large swath of its targeted audience to the U.S. Travel Association's International Pow Wow currently being held in Las Vegas.

The group was originally scheduled to make its pitch in April, but the launch date for the flight was pushed back twice because of battery problems with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

"We had a whole big reception thing planned," said Al White, director of the state of Colorado Tourism Office. "Had we done it earlier and had we had more travel brokers here, we may have had some bookings come out of it."

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Bad timing may have lessened the impact, but both the offices of White and Richard Scharf, president and CEO of Visit Denver, made use of their time by trying to introduce Colorado and Denver to the Japanese travel media.

According to White, their goal is to "seduce the Japanese media" so that the media turns around and seduces readers to visit Colorado.

"Last year alone we got $2.6 million in free press over in (Japan) in leisure magazines and travel magazines by pitching them," Scharf said.

TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 12: Yuichi Matsumoto looks over his shoulder at a banner displaying various landmarks in Colorado on Wednesday as Mayor Michael B. Hancock speaks to the group of travel media members. (Kristen Painter, The Denver Post)

White, Scharf, Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock, former Denver Zoo president, vice president of sales and marketing for Intrawest Rob Perlman and owner of The Fort Restaurant Holly Arnold Kinney held a roundtable forum with members of Japan's travel media on Wednesday.

Scharf highlighted iconic characteristics of the state, including skiing, a healthy and young population, Wild West history and its Native American cultural roots.

Scharf also referred to the state's rich brewing tradition.

Tourism represents a major focus for Denver's economic and civic leaders, as well as United, when looking at maintaining the financial viability of the new nonstop route.

Japan is the second largest source of tourism dollars spent in the United States, trailing only Canada. Currently, about 52,000 Japanese tourists visit Colorado each year and the tourism delegates want that to be much higher.

"We are the new kids on the block...(but) we want our share of Japan," Scharf said. "The Japanese are leisure travelers and they have money."

Andrew Wylegala, Minister-Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Japan, echoed that sentiment at Wednesday morning's economic and political briefing.

"A lot of the Japanese have saturated (U.S.) gateway markets. They've been there," Wylegala said. "The Japanese are looking to get beyond the traditional destinations — Denver plays wonderfully to that — and are looking for value packages."

Because so many tourism-industry representatives are out of the country this week, a return trip is scheduled for November when Colorado tourism leaders plan to finesse the media and build on United's long-standing relationships in the community with one major goal in mind: get Denver and Colorado on Japanese travel itineraries.

"Really, the goal is hype, to build the hype, to sell Denver and Colorado to the travel-planner itineraries. And then it will be PR. There is a pretty good chance we will be doing deskside (interviews) with the writers," Scharf said.

The first step is to get them to understand what Colorado is all about.

"By and large, I think the largest misperception they have is that Colorado is covered in snow year round," White said.

Yuichi Matsumoto was one of the travel journalists present at the forum and is editor in chief of Travel Vision, one of the three key trade travel outlets in Japan and the only one with an online presence.

Matsumoto knows more about Colorado than the average Japanese traveler and has insight into what may speak to his culture.

"It seems that the point now is how to differentiate the states," Matsumoto said. "Many destinations have many things. It is not a good message to consumers to say a wide-range of things (the state offers)."

Instead, Matsumoto said, the most interesting things to him in Colorado are ski resorts, nature and American Indian culture.

Apart from the leisure traveler, there is economic opportunity to reap from international conventions, which now are more likely in Denver due to the new Asian gateway.

"We are really trying to go after some major conventions and one of the first questions they ask is, 'what is your international accessibility,'" Scharf said.

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